Rothide, you just made me realise why I never was comfortable with the argument that porn desensitises you or causes you to act in particular ways. I fight that view vigorously when applied to games and violence.

You'd simply have to be a bit of an idiot to not see the difference and question it, seperate it from yourself. Or you'd have to be a child, that children should be kept from both porn and violent culture I think most people agree with.

Overconsumption, childishness, lack of education and alternative models, yes. Influence? Maybe. On some individuals. However, that should not in my view be reason enough to ban either porn or violent games.

The porn industry needs regulation, worker's rights and less stigma for actresses, but it shouldn't be banned._________________\m/

Also... why on earth do humans not self-identify as animals?? Unless you have a religion that insists on humans being 'special', this strikes as a ridiculously arrogant stance. Humans have terrible habit of setting ourselves outside the system we dwell in, often with bad results. Imho, if you as a human take offence at being associated with/identifiee as an animal, wouldnt it make sense to question WHY you find that offensive? This is somethinga feminist should ask themselves. That said, if any term is used in a derogitory manner, it becomes insulting. it seems kinda obvious that humans will create new insult words, or weaponize previously inoffensive ones, so if people concentrate simply on blanketing words like female (as a noun), youre choosing to play catchup, rather than being proactive. I suppose that bothered me because i dont see the word as inherently (such as nigger) insulting, nor insulting due to normal modern usage/conotations (ie retard). So yeah, female canbe used poorly, but so can nearly any word.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, and I'm not going to worry about the humans > or < animals thing too much. However, calling human women "females" in ways and contexts that men are not called "males," is part of the whole dehumanizing shebang, and also tends to play into the smug, smoking-jacket, "men are rational" "women are earthy" stereotype. Like women are creatures to be examined and defined by a normal human (male.) And you can say, sure, people shouldn't be that way towards animals either. But, the fact is, calling human women "females" is a vestige of the attitude that lumped them together with 'lesser' creatures into a category of things That Men Have Dominion Over. Problematic as being lesser, and problematic for not being in the same basic category as the men.

Rothide, you just made me realise why I never was comfortable with the argument that porn desensitises you or causes you to act in particular ways. I fight that view vigorously when applied to games and violence.

You'd simply have to be a bit of an idiot to not see the difference and question it, seperate it from yourself. Or you'd have to be a child, that children should be kept from both porn and violent culture I think most people agree with.

Overconsumption, childishness, lack of education and alternative models, yes. Influence? Maybe. On some individuals. However, that should not in my view be reason enough to ban either porn or violent games.

The porn industry needs regulation, worker's rights and less stigma for actresses, but it shouldn't be banned.

You cant be so stupid that you cant see the difference between shooting an alien in self defense in halo vs watching an 18yo (...maybe. knowing the ease of bribery there, i HIGHLY doubt everything is on the up and up over there, even if we have our laws) gag until she pukes??? Really?

No, really, i want you to watch some of the bad stuff before you say something this stupid ever again.

Also, who says actresses are the only ones harmed?? The viewer is certainly going to be affected, and there is lots of evidence to support this. Prohibition didnt stop alcohol abuse, so i dont support prohibiting porn, but ffs, why doesnt the west educate kids better in school? Yeah, so extreme conservatives will be against it, but in Canada we didnt even mention porn in sex ed. Note, my last sex ed stuff was in 2000... not that long ago really, but internetporn was already mainstream... access has ofc gone up since, but everyone had already seen more weird shit than we could discuss in the time frame alotted. I shudder to think of what kids today are watching: the porn industry is as bad as the tabacco industry imo.

Another potential difference between porn and videogames that might mitigate and ameliorate their influence, as well as have some kind of check on the type of material produced at least for mainstream consumers, is that we can and do have open discussions about videogames. There's a shared social component that porn does not share to any sort of degree. Porn is still made and consumed in a much more "shadowy" way, there is much less open dialog about individual products, and so people aren't getting their experiences reality checked, and producers aren't getting that kind of feedback.

You cant be so stupid that you cant see the difference between shooting an alien in self defense in halo vs watching an 18yo (...maybe. knowing the ease of bribery there, i HIGHLY doubt everything is on the up and up over there, even if we have our laws) gag until she pukes??? Really?

No, really, i want you to watch some of the bad stuff before you say something this stupid ever again.

Also, who says actresses are the only ones harmed?? The viewer is certainly going to be affected, and there is lots of evidence to support this. Prohibition didnt stop alcohol abuse, so i dont support prohibiting porn, but ffs, why doesnt the west educate kids better in school? Yeah, so extreme conservatives will be against it, but in Canada we didnt even mention porn in sex ed. Note, my last sex ed stuff was in 2000... not that long ago really, but internetporn was already mainstream... access has ofc gone up since, but everyone had already seen more weird shit than we could discuss in the time frame alotted. I shudder to think of what kids today are watching: the porn industry is as bad as the tabacco industry imo.

I have watched a lot of porn, even some bad stuff. I can't say that mouthfucking teenagers until they puke is even a slightly common theme. You're making it sound like it happen as often as you shoot someone in an FPS, and you'll only really get that level of violence in pornography if you actively search for it. Most porn is just normal, piv with some ridiculously flimsy setting or story on top of it. If it normalises anything it'd be attraction for ugly or old men.

I completely agree that kids shouldn't be watching it, and I think I mentioned that in my comment. For someone with nothing to compare with it'd be way more likely to cause damage or create unrealistic expectations._________________\m/

Another potential difference between porn and videogames that might mitigate and ameliorate their influence, as well as have some kind of check on the type of material produced at least for mainstream consumers, is that we can and do have open discussions about videogames. There's a shared social component that porn does not share to any sort of degree. Porn is still made and consumed in a much more "shadowy" way, there is much less open dialog about individual products, and so people aren't getting their experiences reality checked, and producers aren't getting that kind of feedback.

I like to think I get a porn reality check every time I have sex. I can also freely discuss it with friends which may be a luxury, but it is certainly freely discussed in anonymity on the net._________________\m/

Also... why on earth do humans not self-identify as animals?? Unless you have a religion that insists on humans being 'special', this strikes as a ridiculously arrogant stance. Humans have terrible habit of setting ourselves outside the system we dwell in, often with bad results. Imho, if you as a human take offence at being associated with/identifiee as an animal, wouldnt it make sense to question WHY you find that offensive? This is somethinga feminist should ask themselves. That said, if any term is used in a derogitory manner, it becomes insulting. it seems kinda obvious that humans will create new insult words, or weaponize previously inoffensive ones, so if people concentrate simply on blanketing words like female (as a noun), youre choosing to play catchup, rather than being proactive. I suppose that bothered me because i dont see the word as inherently (such as nigger) insulting, nor insulting due to normal modern usage/conotations (ie retard). So yeah, female canbe used poorly, but so can nearly any word.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, and I'm not going to worry about the humans > or < animals thing too much. However, calling human women "females" in ways and contexts that men are not called "males," is part of the whole dehumanizing shebang, and also tends to play into the smug, smoking-jacket, "men are rational" "women are earthy" stereotype. Like women are creatures to be examined and defined by a normal human (male.) And you can say, sure, people shouldn't be that way towards animals either. But, the fact is, calling human women "females" is a vestige of the attitude that lumped them together with 'lesser' creatures into a category of things That Men Have Dominion Over. Problematic as being lesser, and problematic for not being in the same basic category as the men.

So, you are saying the issue stems purely from the assumption that any male that dares use the term female is associating women with animals??? Uh, yeah there are men that dothis, as i said in my post i think, the whole 'derogatory term' section... so why do you feel the need to make a post restating exactly what i said, yet restricting it to a specific gender, even to a specific asshole section of a gender? I assume you aware the views you are condemning may not always be present? you might be manufacturing misogyny here? You can easily projecting mysogygynistic views on someone using female in the biological sense? I admit mistakes can be made, and as a... special individual, i must admit, i make mistakes.

To your second post... i agree big time. Males dont discuss porn, they brag about how extreme the stuff theyve watched is, or theyll paint some pretty messed stuff as normal. Young males without supervision are usually pretty fucked up, 95% of the time, the exceptions being the weird or creepy people.

Last edited by khan on Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

Another potential difference between porn and videogames that might mitigate and ameliorate their influence, as well as have some kind of check on the type of material produced at least for mainstream consumers, is that we can and do have open discussions about videogames. There's a shared social component that porn does not share to any sort of degree. Porn is still made and consumed in a much more "shadowy" way, there is much less open dialog about individual products, and so people aren't getting their experiences reality checked, and producers aren't getting that kind of feedback.

I like to think I get a porn reality check every time I have sex. I can also freely discuss it with friends which may be a luxury, but it is certainly freely discussed in anonymity on the net.

Sex also being something that is not, as a rule, public. The frequency of real sex vs porn can be an issue, and the point that others have brought up earlier here about a lot of people having consumed a ton of porn before ever having their first face-to-face experience, their first reality check, (and possibly with someone else whose own perceptions have also been messed up,) leaves a lot of time for porn to shape things without any real balancing influence.

And on the other side of that coin, to contrast again with videogames, the likelihood of a porn-watching person being in a position to actually have a real sexual encounter to map porn's example onto is really fairly high, whereas the opportunities that I, for an example, will have to pick up a sword and become the Hero of Hyrule are pretty nonexistent. There are also a lot of social disincentives against acting out GTO and causing real mayhem on the streets, whereas even if (close to worst case scenario) a guy outright violently rapes a girl he was in a sexual encounter with because porn twisted his view of reality so badly that he really thought it was okay and she secretly wanted it, the odds of him facing social repercussion for it are depressingly low. That says nothing at all of the less crappy ways that anyone else affected by it might be treating their partners.

Also... why on earth do humans not self-identify as animals?? Unless you have a religion that insists on humans being 'special', this strikes as a ridiculously arrogant stance. Humans have terrible habit of setting ourselves outside the system we dwell in, often with bad results. Imho, if you as a human take offence at being associated with/identifiee as an animal, wouldnt it make sense to question WHY you find that offensive? This is somethinga feminist should ask themselves. That said, if any term is used in a derogitory manner, it becomes insulting. it seems kinda obvious that humans will create new insult words, or weaponize previously inoffensive ones, so if people concentrate simply on blanketing words like female (as a noun), youre choosing to play catchup, rather than being proactive. I suppose that bothered me because i dont see the word as inherently (such as nigger) insulting, nor insulting due to normal modern usage/conotations (ie retard). So yeah, female canbe used poorly, but so can nearly any word.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, and I'm not going to worry about the humans > or < animals thing too much. However, calling human women "females" in ways and contexts that men are not called "males," is part of the whole dehumanizing shebang, and also tends to play into the smug, smoking-jacket, "men are rational" "women are earthy" stereotype. Like women are creatures to be examined and defined by a normal human (male.) And you can say, sure, people shouldn't be that way towards animals either. But, the fact is, calling human women "females" is a vestige of the attitude that lumped them together with 'lesser' creatures into a category of things That Men Have Dominion Over. Problematic as being lesser, and problematic for not being in the same basic category as the men.

So, you are saying the issue stems purely from the assumption that any male that dares use the term female is associating women with animals??? Uh, yeah there are men that dothis, as i said in my post i think, the whole 'derogatory term' section... so why do you feel the need to make a post restating exactly what i said, yet restricting it to a specific gender, even to a specific asshole section of a gender? I assume you aware the views you are condemning may not always be present? you might be manufacturing misogyny here? You can easily projecting mysogygynistic views on someone using female in the biological sense? I admit mistakes can be made, and as a... special individual, i must admit, i make mistakes.

Read it again. I said the issue was men putting women in a category that is below and "other" than the one they themselves are in. That the practice has roots in an enlightenment-era context of rational man's dominion over irrational things just bolsters that argument.

Sex also being something that is not, as a rule, public. The frequency of real sex vs porn can be an issue, and the point that others have brought up earlier here about a lot of people having consumed a ton of porn before ever having their first face-to-face experience, their first reality check, (and possibly with someone else whose own perceptions have also been messed up,) leaves a lot of time for porn to shape things without any real balancing influence.

And on the other side of that coin, to contrast again with videogames, the likelihood of a porn-watching person being in a position to actually have a real sexual encounter to map porn's example onto is really fairly high, whereas the opportunities that I, for an example, will have to pick up a sword and become the Hero of Hyrule are pretty nonexistent. There are also a lot of social disincentives against acting out GTO and causing real mayhem on the streets, whereas even if (close to worst case scenario) a guy outright violently rapes a girl he was in a sexual encounter with because porn twisted his view of reality so badly that he really thought it was okay and she secretly wanted it, the odds of him facing social repercussion for it are depressingly low. That says nothing at all of the less crappy ways that anyone else affected by it might be treating their partners.

Even if "more likely to have sex than own a gun and be in an urban environment or in war" was true, which it is but not to the full extent you want to portray it, shouldn't this be an advocate in favour of porn as not being as damaging? We have the healthy, normal alternative with plenty of emotions to compare with. Actually I'm not sure what on earth the healthy alternative to FPS would be. Being in an environment and not shooting anyone? Isn't that even more common than anything?

Sex also being something that is not, as a rule, public. The frequency of real sex vs porn can be an issue, and the point that others have brought up earlier here about a lot of people having consumed a ton of porn before ever having their first face-to-face experience, their first reality check, (and possibly with someone else whose own perceptions have also been messed up,) leaves a lot of time for porn to shape things without any real balancing influence.

And on the other side of that coin, to contrast again with videogames, the likelihood of a porn-watching person being in a position to actually have a real sexual encounter to map porn's example onto is really fairly high, whereas the opportunities that I, for an example, will have to pick up a sword and become the Hero of Hyrule are pretty nonexistent. There are also a lot of social disincentives against acting out GTO and causing real mayhem on the streets, whereas even if (close to worst case scenario) a guy outright violently rapes a girl he was in a sexual encounter with because porn twisted his view of reality so badly that he really thought it was okay and she secretly wanted it, the odds of him facing social repercussion for it are depressingly low. That says nothing at all of the less crappy ways that anyone else affected by it might be treating their partners.

Even if "more likely to have sex than own a gun and be in an urban environment or in war" was true, which it is but not to the full extent you want to portray it, shouldn't this be an advocate in favour of porn as not being as damaging? We have the healthy, normal alternative with plenty of emotions to compare with. Actually I'm not sure what on earth the healthy alternative to FPS would be. Being in an environment and not shooting anyone? Isn't that even more common than anything?

Sex ed, regulation, responsible parents please.

If that was the only thing I was saying, maybe, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that, and you've left out a lot of my argument.

If that was the only thing I was saying, maybe, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that, and you've left out a lot of my argument.

Sorry I should have made it more clear. I have a tendency to use too few words.

I think the situations where someone may be damaged by watching porn or have their perceptions warped, can be mitigated by responsible parenting, and sexual education. A lot of the teens growing up recently have had pretty clueless parents. We're getting better with this, I hope, and so is our software and the online services.

I don't think it is wholly fair to blame the porn industry for teenagers watching porn. We don't tend to blame the alcohol industry when they drink._________________\m/

Agreed that blaming it all on the industry doesn't work. And better education and, shall we call it, sexual literacy in general will help. That goes hand in hand with my point that we are more literate about, and more willing to discuss, videogames products than we are sex products. That lack of open discourse is part of why, currently, the harm porn does is so much more of a concern, because it's left to fill a void that doesn't have enough other messaging to counterbalance. And that's worth talking about.

I don't think that porn is the boogeyman that some people try to make it out to be. I come from a religious culture where we're so paranoid about pornography (its mention in our general meetings is more predictable than that of Jesus right now) that we're making it worse, and actually -causing- shame-cycle and don't-think-of-pink-elephants addictions and all sorts of other dysfunction among our members. It's a mess.

There is a concurrency with problems like you get around porn, though. The lack of positive messaging to balance the negative is a problem, but the negative still exists, and still predominantly enough for concern. It takes a while to overcome history, and the roots of porn's exploitative nature run deep, going clear back to the classical etymology of the word being connotative of depictions of sex slaves. I actually draw sex-positive erotica, so, hey, I'm trying to do my bit to fill the void with some better stuff. But there are so many problems to root out, so many old assumptions, stereotypes, and damaging tropes to not only avoid slipping into, but to worry about other people reading into the material even you don't want it there. There's a whole porn culture that's a problem, and not just the specific material produced.

Even beyond other concerns, on the user end, there is still something of caution to be said for the act of using another human being for one's own gratification. In a real sexual relationship, you are in a relationship, and you are (ideally) experiencing pleasure mutually. Some might be tempted to say that it's still a mutual exchange because the actresses on the other side are willing and were paid, but I'll just let it stand that replacing mutual giving and receiving with money ain't doing anyone's relationship skills a favor. This matter is on the user end, and copping to it is a matter of personal responsibility and literacy. (Personally, I'm more comfortable with drawn material than photographed, even if they are similar in terms of tastefulness and messaging.)

Don't fully agree that porn culture as a whole is a problem, it's too big and sprawling and full of both good and horrible stuff. It is slanted, it is a laughing mirror of how we see sexuality. I think if we manage to liberate female sexuality a little bit further porn will change with it. I don't believe that we can forcibly change porn in order to recieve liberation. Feminist porn, drawings (where could I check out your work?), porn literature, this can change it a little bit. As much badmouthing as 50 shades gets, at least it made a lot of women suddenly look very horny and still socially acceptable._________________\m/

If that was the only thing I was saying, maybe, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that, and you've left out a lot of my argument.

Sorry I should have made it more clear. I have a tendency to use too few words.

I think the situations where someone may be damaged by watching porn or have their perceptions warped, can be mitigated by responsible parenting, and sexual education. A lot of the teens growing up recently have had pretty clueless parents. We're getting better with this, I hope, and so is our software and the online services.

I don't think it is wholly fair to blame the porn industry for teenagers watching porn. We don't tend to blame the alcohol industry when they drink.

Yknow precautions other than a "are you 18 y/n" might help._________________